


The Slow and Steady Fall

by Legendaerie, Natendo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Dismemberment, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sylvix Big Bang 2020, non-AM paired ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natendo/pseuds/Natendo
Summary: Decades after the war, Sylvain leaves on a journey to find what remains of Felix Fraldarius.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 13
Kudos: 92





	The Slow and Steady Fall

**Author's Note:**

> behold! the big bang i really thought my depression was gonna defeat but then i wrote 7k in two days!
> 
> the biggest of thanks to my betas, Vicky (ariosedreamer) and Rowan (farseers_fool/birdadjascent) for helping me work all of the kinks out of this, and for Natendo my art partner for keeping the faith in me when I didn't believe in myself.
> 
> Opening lyrics are from Lost on You by LP

_when you get older, plainer, saner  
_ _will you remember all the danger we came from  
_ _burning like embers, falling, tender  
_ _long before the days of no surrender years ago_

_and will you know?_

* * *

  
  


It’s an ordinary late winter morning when the envoy arrives.

Sylvain had been at his desk, reviewing finance until his eyes hurt. Locked away in a tower room, no one can see the glasses he has to wear in order to read - a gift from Ignatz, who had promised discretion - as he balances budgets and tries to find a little extra wages for the workers of his house and fields. He hasn’t married, after all. He doesn’t think he ever will. Might as well spend the century or so of accrued Gautier wealth on the people, as thanks to the new Archbishop for granting him the land of an expired birthright. Who knows if amends could have been made with Sreng without a Gautier to bend the apologetic knee, but they’d been made all the same.

It’s an ordinary day, so when he sees the cloud of powdered snow in the distance, the only thing he cares about is the size and speed of it. One man on a horse at a leisurely speed; the gatekeeper can handle it. 

Sylvain takes off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose, stretch out the tight muscles in his shoulders. Maybe it’s the mail, bringing him letters from his friends scattered across the continent, updates on the warmer parts of the world. He especially loves Dorothea’s letters, as they often contain drafts of new plays she’s starring in, and Bernadette’s occasional novel excerpts. He developed a taste for fiction while at the academy and finds the time to order a book or two every moon, now that there’s nobody to try to read it over his shoulder.

“Sir?” comes a voice from the stairwell.

Pulled from his thoughts, Sylvain sits up. “Yes, Denno?” he calls back.

His butler’s voice is subdued. “There’s someone here for you.”

With an irritated set to his jaw, Sylvain rises, tucking his spectacles back into their padded box and locking them in his desk. “Is it a goat’s head and a threat on my life? It’s been a while since someone sent me one of those.”

His next self deprecating joke dies on his tongue at the expressions of the men waiting for him in the hall. Denno looks ashen, and the messenger at his side is visibly bracing himself with a large bundle under his arm.

“Good afternoon,” he greets them after a beat. “How can I help you?”

“I have a… a package for you, sir. From a mercenary company west of here. They insisted that this should be sent to you.”

The messenger lifts a bundle wrapped in linen into view - long and slightly curved. It trembles like a shivering child as Sylvain accepts it and unwraps it.

A sword, nicked in the blade a little over halfway down but still as keen as a midwinter wind, sits in his hands, the hilt simply wrapped in embossed black leather for a sturdy grip and no pommel stone. Long enough to be two handed, light enough to be one. 

Sylvain knows this sword. He’s seen it cleave through blood and bone, twirl to sheer away arrows mid flight; seen it kiss Sylvain’s chin and tilt his face up to stare into the eyes of its master who has knocked him down in sparring again. He knows it like an old friend.

He would rather it be plunged into his heart then handed gently to him like this, swaddled in blood-flecked cotton cloth.

“Ah,” someone says, stealing his voice. “Come to my parlor. Denno, please fetch this man a drink. He’s come a long way to see me.”

How he gets to his sitting room, he doesn’t know. Sylvain doesn’t come back to his senses until he hears the pop of a wine bottle being uncorked, and he reaches for the offered cup with greedy hands. The sword is tucked in his elbow, half draped in its pale wrappings.

He feels as he imagined Miklan had felt when Sylvain impaled him with their own family heirloom. The crush of broken ribs, the pulse of agony as his beating heart poured his life blood out of his body. They’d promised. They’d sworn. Not without the other.

Sylvain stares out the window. “So,” he says, his voice as hollow and stony as the well he still dreams of drowning in, “do we know what happened?”

A hesitation. “At some point, someone must have. Unfortunately, sir, I am not the first messenger hired. All I know is that the man who owned this sword died to the west of here, along with most of his mercenary company.”

Sylvain opens his eyes and holds out his glass to be refilled. “The man who owned this sword was Felix Hugo Fraldarius,” he murmurs, voice brittle and cold as the ice he can see on the mountains, distant and pale like chunks of stars embedded in stone.

There’s a collective intake of breath in the parlor. While the nobility of the land that had once been known as Faerghus lacked the importance they had wielded in prior eras, their names were still known.

Sylvain braces himself with a deep breath of his own. It wouldn’t do for him to go sentimental in front of strangers. “Will you need lodging for the night?” he asks instead. “Food?”

He hears the messenger sigh. “I would appreciate that, sir.”

“Anything you need, my housekeeper will assist you. I must return to my work. Excuse me.”

Without waiting for anything further, Sylvain turns and heads back to his study, snatching the bottle of wine with his free hand as he goes. He takes the stairs two at a time, tripping at the top as he staggers into the room. His breathing is coming short and heavy, catching in his throat. He lays the sword on his desk and drops into his chair, body going slack as he stares at the ceiling. Blinks. Breathes. Struggles to do either and bringing the bottle of wine up to his lips.

After a long pull, Sylvain reaches out with his free hand, fumbling blindly for the parcel on his desk. When he finds the sword he holds it up above his head, tilting the blade to try to find his reflection in it. He is rewarded with a flash of red, more like fire than blood. The last time he saw it in action was… Enbarr, maybe. Over twenty years ago.

He doesn’t remember.

The weight of guilt sits in his stomach with the wine. He’ll never make another memory with Felix, and he can’t remember—

Sylvain sits up with a gasp, a rush of pure panic washing over him. “No, no no no no no,” and he hauls out of his chair, stumbling as the wine sweeps his knees. “Nonononono.”

On his hands and knees, Sylvain grips the sword tightly - one at the handle and one on the blade, feeling the icy sting as the sword cut into his palm and fingers, trying to breathe. The eternity of it, the finality of Felix really being gone, is terrifying.

He presses his forehead to the blade, bowing as though in prayer, eyes squeezed tightly closed. It can’t be true. He wouldn’t let it be. They’d sworn to each other not to die young like that. To protect each other. And instead, Felix had—

Sylvain goes very still.

No. Without a body to prove it, Felix could be alive. 

He opens his eyes and stares at the blade, cold as frost and pale as moonlight. As sure as he can feel the sword in his hands, he knows what he has to do. He can’t give up. Not so soon. Not this time.

Denno is where he usually is - talking to his partner in the kitchen - and he straightens when Sylvain enters the room. His blue eyes widen when he looks down.

“Sir, your hand—“

“I’m leaving first thing in the morning for the western coast. I trust you can manage the castle while I’m away.”

Denno blinks, stealing a glance at his partner. “Of course, sir. Do— do you know when you will return?”

Sylvain is already leaving the room, head buzzing with plans. “When I’ve found what I’m looking for.”

He shakes his injured hand. A few droplets of blood spatter the stone floor behind him as he marches for the armory to ensure his old armor still fits him.

Not without him. Felix can’t be dead while he’s still alive. He’ll find his friend, or he’ll sell his life searching for him.

* * *

_Sylvain watched the horse throw its head, the reins jerked out of Felix’s tight grip as the beast took a step backwards and snorted. Felix snarled._

_“Easy, easy,” Sylvain said, placing a hand on Felix’s shoulder as he passed, catching the horses’s bridle and stroking its neck. “Easy. Shhh.”_

_“I hate horses.”_

_“They can tell. And so can I.” Sylvain stroked the beast’s nose, murmured soft noises under his breath, kept his voice low and calm. “You’re scaring her.”_

_“Sure.”_

_“You are. They’re prey animals, Felix. Herd animals. If you want to be able to ride them, you need to be a good leader. Like me.”_

_This time, it’s Felix who snorted._

_“What if I don’t want to be able to ride them?” he asked, acidic as usual. “What if I’m happier on the ground?”_

_“Then you can fight everyone alone because the rest of us will leave you behind,” Sylvain taunted as he scratched the horses forehead until the beast sighed and relaxed. “There we go. Good girl. I’ve got you.”_

_Felix tutted and took a step closer - the horse went tense again, wasting all of Sylvain’s hard work in soothing her._

_“So what am I supposed to do?” Felix asked._

_“Relax,” Sylvain instructed, rubbing the horse’s neck._

_A pause. “Which one of us are you talking to?”_

_“Yes.”_

_Felix heaved a sigh, probably rolling his eyes and staring at the low ceiling of the stable. “All right,” he said to Sylvain’s surprise. “I’ll try.”_

_“What’s making you so nervous?” Sylvain asked. “Worried you’re going to stain those lovely white boots?”_

_“No. Clothes are meant to be worn.” Another pause. Felix used to be better with his words, back when Glenn was still alive. Better with his emotions, as well. He had more than three of them in those days. “It’s very—“_

_“She.”_

_“She’s very big. And I can’t use my sword from up there, so if we’re in a fight…”_

_Sylvain hid a smile. Like they’re going to have a battle for real any time soon. “Okay. Then maybe you can try to learn archery, or something else you can use from on top of a horse.”_

_“Maybe.”_

_Sylvain reached blindly behind him. “In the meantime,” he declared, “why don’t you two work on your relationship?”_

_“What are you— hey!”_

_Sylvain’s searching hand found Felix’s wrist and pulled him forward, holding the horse steady with the other. “Stop fighting me so much, she’s not going to bite you while I’m here.”_

_“Because you’re—“ Felix struggled again, the pulse in his wrist beating rapidly in Sylvain’s grip, “so magically good with horses?”_

_“I am good with all sorts of girls,” he crowed, and placed Felix’s hand on the horse's shoulder. “Now. Stroke - gently.”_

_He guided Felix’s hand in several short, gentle strokes down the horse's neck._

_“Breathe. Slowly.”_

_For once, Felix obeyed._

_Sylvain kept his voice even. “There we go. See? She’s not so bad.”_

_“Whatever.”_

_“A little kindness will go a long way to get horses to like you. People, too.”_

_Felix tugged on his hand again. “I’m here for an education, not to flirt with women like you.”_

_He smiled to himself. “Should I get you a stallion, then?”_

“Sir Gautier?”

Sylvain comes back to himself in a rush, his hand still on his horse’s flank. He blinks and looks over at the stablehand at his elbow, looking worried.

“This was the horse you had wanted, right?” she asks. 

He nods. “Yes, thank you,” he agrees, stroking the stallion along his black neck. There are scars all over the beast’s body and a spiderweb of white markings splashed across his forehead - a Thoron scar from a raid on some Slitherer mages a few years back. The memory stings, but he presses a kiss to the warm whorl of fur there, right underneath the forelock. Nihlis has carried him well in recent years. He trusts him now.

“Is there anything else you need before you leave?” the stablehand asks.

Sylvain looks over the people gathered around him. Men and women who were bound to his parents but since freed from any formal obligation, who have spent the last fifteen or so years teaching him how to run a territory and aiding him in peace with Sreng. Good people.

A cold calm settles over him, like a layer of fog. He doesn’t think he’ll ever see them again.

“I’m all right, Trisscar. Take care, all of you!”

And when he raises his hand to wave goodbye, his gaze locks with that of his closest aide, and he knows Denno’s thoughts match his own. Still he climbs onto his horse and rides off into the snow.

One might think that the Itha Plains are empty in the winter, as the fields lay fallow and often buried in snow. This is only the conclusion of the merchants, however, who know roads and trades and weather. In truth, the Plains are just as vital of a source of food in the winter as well as in the summer and fall; hunting in the rolling expanse of white is an essential pastime of this northern corner of Fodlan.

As Sylvain rides, the sun climbs higher into the pale pink sky, washing away the dewy colors with a brilliant cloudless blue. On the ground, the snow sparkles bright and pristine; his eyes shielded from the glare with a light wrapping of dark silk, Sylvain can see past the lies of the smooth pale terrain. There are tracks of various animals speckled around the landscape on either side of the narrow, nearly invisible road, the occasional spear of last years weeds not fully buried in the snow; and once a stain of old blood and drag marks on the snow from a successful hunt.

Like the snow smooths the rise and fall of the terrain it covers, so has time settled over Fodlan to hide the scars of war. Things have changed since Byleth became the new Archbishop, but it can be hard to tell out here where the land and the ways of the people who live on them have remained the same. 

On a hill, just past midday, Sylvain turns his horse.

Behind him, he can just make out the smudge on the horizon that is Gautier Castle. It, too, has stayed the same since his parents passing and the forging of a treaty with Sreng; undaunted and unmoved by the desertion of its master. 

He’s a little off course.

“Come on, Nihlis,” he clicks his tongue to the stallion, turns a little more west, and keeps going.

* * *

Dusk is approaching when he enters the little town, if it can be called that. It’s a cluster of three buildings; a blacksmith, a stable and an inn, the latter of which are side by side structures already peppered around with merchant carts. Places like this sprout along the main roads like mushrooms after a rain. It’s as good of a spot as any to start his queries.

He stables his horse, slinging the saddlebags over his shoulders and passing Nihlis and a couple coins off to a stable-hand. The inn itself sports a tavern on its first floor which is filled with merchants and local farmers alike, he assumes, based on the sheer numbers of them. They seem to be in good spirits; one of the tables is decorated with the head and pelt of a large deer. 

Sylvain heads to the bar. “I’ll have an ale, please,” he asks, “and some stew if you have any.”

“Venison all right?” the man behind the counter checks.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Three and a half gold.”

He hands him four gold-plated Kingdom coins. The man gives him a weighty look. “You’re the Gautier, aren’t you? The one on the castle up north?” he asks.

Sylvain twists the corner of his mouth in a grim smile. “What gave it away, the hair or the outdated money?”

“The money. And the way you looked over the place before you entered. You were in the war, too.” The man rolls up one sleeve to reveal the pebbled scars of a fire magic wielder crawling up his arm. “What else do you need?”

Sylvain thumbs the inside of his wrist, where similar marks have faded with time. “I’m looking for a mercenary group.”

“The closest we have to fighters are them,” and the innkeeper nods over to the table with the hunters.

They’re bickering over something, likely trivial by how only two are going at it as the rest drinks and laughs. It reminds Sylvain of times back in Garreg Mach before the war, of arguing with Felix about who had fought the best that day or being needled by Ingrid for plunging into danger himself. 

He looks away. “I’m looking for someone specific. Felix Fraldarius, a man I used to know from the war. Anyone selling blade-work pass by here in the last few months?”

The innkeeper chews on the inside of his lip. “None that claimed themselves as mercenaries since high summer. There was talk of attacks made along the Rhodos coast for a while. Your man might have headed out there.”

West. Like the messenger had said. “Thank you. How much more for a room?”

“Seventeen pieces, for you.”

Sylvain counts them out and slides them across the bar. The innkeeper passes over a key, taps his chest in a salute and moves on to the next guest.

The venison stew tastes like classic Faerghus fare - which is to say it tastes like nothing at all - but it goes down easy along with the ale. Unable to mingle with the festive air, Sylvain leaves the tavern area and heads upstairs to the rooms.

Undressing for the night, he peels off his glove and by accident rips off the bandage he’d wrapped hastily around the wound from Felix’s sword. It aches, red and tender around the edges. He sits on the bed and stares at it, drawn once more into a memory.

_“Faith,” Sylvain said in disbelief. “You want me to learn Faith magic?”_

_Byleth was, as always, inscrutable. “It would be nice to have a healer on a horse,” she informed him. “You can get to someone faster than Mercedes or Marianne.”_

_“Their spells have range!”_

_“But they don’t. Mages need to be protected. You can be sent off alone and stand your ground.”_

_Sylvain snorted, licking the edges of his teeth behind closed lips. Faith. Of all the things to learn. He didn’t know if he believed in a loving Creator God anymore: much less if he would want to follow Her or trust in Her to save someone on the battlefield._

_“I can’t promise I’ll be any good,” he said, a variation on a phrase he’s parroted a million times for fragile self protection, “but if you want me, I’ll try.”_

_He applied himself to the task well enough - when the Professor was around to instruct him in it, of course - and managed to learn a simple Heal spell by the end of the month. The first person he went to try it out on was Felix._

_Felix didn’t leave the training grounds to do much more than sleep these days. Sylvain could hear the blow of steel on wood from outside, restless and relentless, and shouldered the door open. “Felix,” he called, momentarily blinded by the darkness from inside the grounds compared to the brilliant sun of midday behind him. “You here?”_

_“What.” The word was ground out and came from Sylvain’s left. He turned, eased the heavy doors shut behind him, and crossed the room._

_“I need your help with something.”_

_Felix snorted and wiped sweat off his brow. “No.”_

_“You haven’t even heard what it is.”_

_“I don’t have to. I can hear what it is in your voice.”_

_Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Oh? What do I want from you?”_

_With a flourish and the flash of his Crest, Felix quartered the solid oak training dummy. “Something stupid.”_

_“Can’t I just be happy to have accomplished something?” Sylvain had countered. “To see you?”_

_His last question, finally, gave Felix pause. He lowered his sword and turned his head a fraction more towards Sylvain._

_“What do you want?” he asked, voice low. Cautious._

_“I’m learning Faith magic. Show me where you hurt,” and he grabbed Felix by the wrist, sliding his sleeve up his arm._

_“Sylvain!” Felix jerked away but not free, and Sylvain followed him. His eyes had adjusted to the low lighting and he could see the wild, blooming disbelief of Felix’s eyes. “Wh— are you insane?”_

_“You’re always training. You’ve gotta be sore somewhere.” He moved on to the next arm, Felix frozen under his touch. “It’s not that crazy.”_

_“It is when you just start— touching me all over. Stop it. Just—“ Felix’s voice had wavered, and he took a breath to steel himself. “I’ll tell you. If you’re going to insist on this.”_

_Sylvain grinned, hand on Felix’s shoulder as he felt for the bump and heat of a bruise. “I am.”_

_Felix heaved a sigh. “Fine. My right hand.”_

_Sylvain released his friend and focused instead on the offered appendage. The palm had been wrapped in a strip of linen, likely torn from a rag instead of dressed properly in the infirmary._

_“What happened?”_

_“Reason training. The magic backfired and it stung my hand. It wasn’t worth going to a healer for.” Felix shifted his weight from one foot to the other, impatient. “If you’re volunteering and if you’ll be quick about it, I’ll let you do it.”_

_“My pleasure.” Sylvain closed his eyes and concentrated like he’d been trained to do; reached out with his mind, seeking the warm touch of the Goddess._

_As he had so often before, he found nothing. The magic sputtered and died._

_“Really?”_

_“Shh. I’m trying to focus.”_

_Felix huffed._

_Once again, Sylvain tried to follow his Professors instructions; tried to reach out and find that bottomless lake of light they had described, and draw the magic he needed from it. But as soon as he found it, it narrowed into a well with cold stone sides and he snapped his eyes open to end the attempt himself._

_“What’s wrong?”_

_“The Goddess isn’t talking to me,” Sylvain joked. “Must not like me, either.”_

_To his surprise, Felix cut him off. “Don’t say things like that. You’re not_ that _awful.”_

_“You sure?”_

_“I wouldn’t be here if you were, would I?”_

_Sylvain looked at him for a long moment, and only when Felix started to squirm did he close his eyes and try once again._

_This time, the love he sought wasn’t the divine, conceptual love of a being above humanity. It was a love he had felt before, from the friends who had been the distant bright stars of a painful childhood. It was those memories, that warmth, and as he drew from them he felt their power surging through his hands._

_When he opened his eyes, he watched the Heal spell blanket the raw wound on Felix’s palm, yellow-gold sparks seeping into the weeping flesh and leaving behind new skin. In the back of his mind, he heard music; the faint, lonely cry of a violin._

_“See?” he asked, desperate to please. “That wasn’t so bad.”_

_“Try to do it faster next time,” Felix had retorted, easing his hand out of Sylvain’s grip, “and ask before you start— touching me everywhere.”_

_“Will do, Felix,” and his smile had felt so light his steps felt like they had wings._

Faith magic can’t be used on one’s self. Sylvain has to settle for wrapping it again and hoping that the night’s rest will aid in his body’s own healing.

* * *

  
  


The last time Sylvain was in Fhirdadd, it was to escort a pair of mages to the sorcerers school who had lost their horses near his borders a few summers back.

The time before that was over thirty years ago, to visit Dimitri.

Here and now, it’s too dark with clouds and evening to see the ruins of what at once been the seat of the Kingdom in the distance, the castle where so many happy days of his childhood had been spent. Sylvain is grateful for that small mercy, even as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

They bounce like playful children on the hardened earth road, as if cheered by the warm weather that allows them to be liquid in leiu of ice. Then as they fall more rapidly, the musical laughter of their splashing takes on a more sinister tone. At the first rumble of thunder, ever aware of the sword across his back, Sylvain starts to look for shelter.

He finds a dilapidated shed at the far edge of a weed-clogged field. The soggy earth sucks at each step of his stallion’s hooves feet, hungry and yawning like wounds in their wake. He dismounts and hunts for a dry cloth to wipe down the horses black coat among his belongings, listening to the storm build.

His horse huffs and nuzzles Sylvain’s legs, search for treats he hasn’t carried in years. 

“Forgive me, old friend,” and he reaches up to stroke the rag along one long, smooth ear, “but Kingdom coin didn’t translate to as much money in the new world. I’m a touch short on rations.”

Sylvain steps around his horse’s back, careful to keep his hand on the shadow-dark flank so Nihlis doesn’t startle at footsteps behind him, and as his eyes land on the horizon he sees a flash of lightning, brilliant and distant and blue.

_It had been dark that night when bandits had attacked them on the way home from a battle. A small mission, a favor for one of their suppliers whose chain had been stymied by the opposing side, and yet they were still tired enough to be surprised._

_Sylvain himself, ever the eyesore, had been the target of several archers. His horse had been struck in the shoulder and gone lame from the blow. His feeble Faith magic sputtered around the wound, keeping her stable as he dismounted but unable to repair the torn flesh while the arrows remained._

_And then a matching one had thwacked him in the shoulder, missing his neck by a hair’s breadth. He stumbled away, gasping from the shock, and gripped the arrow by the shaft. A barbed head. If he ripped it out, it’d take half his throat with it._

_“There’s a price on your traitorous head, Gautier,” snarled a voice from the shadows. “You should have stayed and died with your wretched King.”_

_If he could keep her talking, he might be able to locate her by sound. Sylvain licked his lips._

_“How much is the price these days?” he laughed back, teeth gritted against the pain. “Is it more than it was before the War started, or have I gone down in value along with my Crest?”_

_“Enough to risk keeping your head intact,” came the retort._

_As Sylvain turned, his Lance ready to strike, a blue beam of light speared the darkness; the crackling magic of Thoron. The bandit screamed, her body illuminated by the bolts of electricity, before she dropped to the ground like a sack of sand._

_“Felix,” Sylvain addressed the shadow approaching him, silhouetted in light from Lysithea’s massive Bolganone from across the way. “There you are. How—“_

_“Where did it hit you,” Felix snarled, grabbing Sylvain by the collar of his armor and yanking him down. His other hand searched Sylvain’s body, stroked along the metal plates until it found the arrow._

_“I’m fine,” Sylvain meant to assure him in more detail, but the hand that caressed his cheek was bare. Felix had taken off his gloves to inspect his body, and the unexpected contact of skin on skin robbed him of his words._

_“You were their target,” Felix said, low and hateful. “They knew we were coming. We should tell the professor.”_

_“It’s possible they just got lucky.”_

_In the dark, his eyes could not read Felix’s expression, but he could hear it. “I don’t put stock in luck. We tell Byleth. And we rid our ranks of pests before we lose someone important.”_

_Anger. Bitterness. The grim finality of knowing one might have to end the life of another. But something else lurked beneath those words, too, and Felix still had not pulled away._

_Sylvain—_

“Excuse me!”

There’s a girl standing beside him. How long has she been there? How long has he been standing out into the rain, lost in memory?

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he says, scrambling for his manners. “I didn’t notice you were there.”

“It’s all right. I came to offer you shelter in our house and our barn.” She can’t be past 14, round-faced and sturdily built. A farmer's daughter through and through. Perhaps that’s why she isn’t scared of a wild-looking man with shaggy red hair and the start of a matching beard. “Grandma says it looks like there might be hail, and our old pig shed won’t keep you safe.”

“That’s very kind of you. I’ll take you up on that. My name is Sylvain.”

“Elise.”

She heads out into the rain, breaking into a spring the moment she steps out of shelter. He hurries after her, boots churning up foul-smelling mud along with Nihlis’s hooves as they hurry after their guide.

Sylvain untacks his horse and rubs the animal dry until he himself starts to shiver (he hates to think about his age but sometimes it’s inevitable, the reminder that his body is past its peak) and has to give up. Elise waits for him, keeping well away from the massive ink-black stallion, and ushers him into the house.

His first impression is that it seems empty.

It’s a family farmhouse, or it was when it was built. The only people who greet him are a boy just barely into adolescence and an old woman sipping tea by the fire.

“Come, come,” the woman says, her hair pure white and her face lined with wrinkles. “I’ve lived too long to be shy of strangers. Dry yourself by the fire.”

He does, perhaps a little too easy, but Sylvain has lived a few years himself and has honed his ability to judge someone’s character. The family seems honest enough, if a little broken. Fallen to disrepair, like their pig shed had been. 

The war left nothing untouched.

“My son is on a trip to town for more food, otherwise I would offer you a meal. As it stands, I have some biscuits and tea.”

“You’re too kind,” he assures her. “Just the tea. I won’t impose on you for long.”

Elise brings him the tea - sweet and herbal and familiar in ways he cannot name. It reminds him of Marianne. He accepts the cup gladly.

“Are you on a trip, too?” Elise’s brother asks.

“I am. I’m looking for an old friend.”

“What’s she look like?”

“He,” Sylvain corrects gently, “and he looks my age, probably. Copper eyes. Dark indigo hair. He used to carry this sword,” and he taps the one strapped across his back.

The boy holds out his hands. “Oh, oh, can I see it? Papa never lets me touch them in the marketplace.”

Sylvain glances at the old woman. She shrugs. 

“Let him try. If Pietro cuts himself, it’s his own fault.”

With care, Sylvain unsheathes Felix’s sword and holds it out. With effort, he lets the boy take hold of the hilt and pull the weapon away. 

“It’s beautiful,” Pietro says, tilting it around to catch the firelight.

The words drip, unintended, from Sylvain’s lips like rain from an overflowing gutter. “He was.”

“And so sharp!” the boy continues, not appearing to have heard. “It’s a lovely sword, sir. I hope you can return it to him.”

“I hope so, too,” Sylvain replies with a smile, and slides the sword back home in its sheath.

On their urging, he dries himself by the fire and cleans the worst of the mud from his clothes. When he wakes from a nap he didn’t intend to take, the grandmother is still sitting across from him, dozing in her own chair.

When he gets up, she stirs.

“You’re going so soon?” she asks with a yawn.

“Yes.” In the early hours of the damp pre-dawn, his words slip out without proper thought. “I waited too long in the first place.”

She nods and settles back into her chair. “May the Goddess be with you,” she concludes, “and lock the door on the way out.”

Nihlis yawns and snuffles when Sylvain leads him out of the stalls, but together they head out just as the first light of dawn breaks on the horizon.

* * *

Sylvain doesn’t count the days he’s spent crossing Fodlan alone; they simply appear, one after the other, arriving abruptly and fading like snowflakes on skin. He zigzags across the continent, asking those he finds about places asking for mercenary work or large battles. The answers he gets are as varied as the people he asks, but enough of them agree with the bartender from Gautier; the Rhodos coast.

And so he continues his path south and west, with the weather slowly growing more mild as he travels. Not all at once, and it backtracks into bitter cold fairly often, like a frightened child easing their way down the stairs only to retreat back up the way they came, but enough to assure him it’s taken him a little over half a moon to reach the Tailtean Plains.

More than any other place, he feels the emptiness here; the fields are fallow and often still edged in frost, the rich soil nourished in the past by human blood and bodies from the war waged on it. It’s said that livestock refuse to graze on the battlefields, and the vegetables grown there turn out more bitter than other places, so it’s often used for hay and wheat. 

The plains stretch out to infinity on either side of the beaten path, and at night it blends into the horizon until Sylvain cannot look at it anymore without feeling as though he is on the edge of a cliff, about to topple over and fall for eternity. At those times, he keeps his eyes down to only the next few steps in front of him.

One night, the wind changes and goes so frigid Sylvain has to stop early and set a fire in the shelter of a massive tree. The trunk is nearly as wide as Nihlis is long, and they’re both able to hide themselves in the lee of it as the wind sighs and moans around them. 

Sylvain leans against the trunk, as close as he dares to the fire without risk of catching ablaze himself, and tries to think of a comforting memory. Something to keep him warm and calm as the branches clatter and cry out above him.

And like it has before, like it will again, his mind turns to Felix.

_He hadn’t slept for three days._

_Sylvain stared at the wall behind the Professor in each of his classes, stopping every so often to scratch some indiscernible shape into his notes. He didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything but his lance - not the Lance of Ruin, but the one he favored for years prior - plunging into the heart of the Beast who had been his brother._

_In those final moments, what he had seen reflected in those crimson eyes had gutted him in return._

_He burned the lance on the second day, when he realized the blood had soaked so deep into the wood the stain wouldn’t come out. He had smelled the iron, the gore as it burned and it had made him sick. He smiled without feeling and he ate without tasting anything, and today he took a seat on the bench before Catherine’s lecture._

_“You look pale.”_

_Sylvain hoped they wouldn’t have to practice with their weapons. The Professor had entrusted the Lance of Ruin to him, and he hated how it felt in his hand. He swore he could hear it talking to him, hateful whispers like the ghost of Miklan lived in the bone blade now. He couldn’t stand how it twitched like a parasite, drawing his soul out through the hand wrapped around its shaft. He—_

_“Sylvain?”_

_Felix was beside him, unusually close. Sylvain blinked and realized it was his own fault; he had crowded his friend against the end of the bench, trapping him between the arm and Sylvain’s own body._

_“Oh. Sorry. I’ll move.”_

_“Can you?” Felix asked. “You fell into this seat like it took everything in you to show up today.”_

_It did._

_He smiled, a paper thin expression. “It’s fine, I’ll—“_

_“Scuze me,” boomed a voice, and Raphael took the empty space at the end of the bench, locking the rest of them into their places._

_Sylvain mustered more feeling for the apologetic look he gave Felix._

_“Whatever.” His friend turned his attention to the front of the room._

_He tried to follow suit. He did. But the heat of the room seemed as heavy as full plate armor, and he found himself slumping deeper and deeper into his seat. Something shifted at his side, and as his eyes closed he let gravity pull him to the side. His cheek collided with something solid, but not painfully so, and his next breath was scented with oak and sweat and steel polish. The first time it hadn’t been flavored with blood._

_A voice, confused, reached his ear and melted into nonsense as the world went black around him._

_He opened his eyes what felt like seconds later, and the classroom was empty. Darker too, and lit only by a candle on the table in front of him. He sat up, rubbing his cheek, and watched with awe as Felix rolled his shoulder._

_“I— I didn’t mean to do that.”_

_“I figured,” Felix said in his usual clipped way. “I had Manuela make sure you didn’t die.”_

_Sylvain swallowed. “How long was I out?”_

_“Couple hours.”_

_“Oops,” he chuckled, a sound dry and brittle as autumn leaves. “I should get going. Let you go back to hitting training dummies like they pissed in your breakfast.”_

_He started to stand, and Felix’s hand forced him back down._

_“You haven’t slept since our mission, have you?”_

_The firelight reflected off Felix’s eyes, became part of their heated orange glow. Burning like the magic Sylvain wielded, or perhaps he favored fire because of that blistering stare._

_“What mission?” he asked._

_Felix didn’t blink._

_Sylvain broke so easily you would have thought his element was ice, and melted into a river that poured itself into Felix’s hands. “No. I haven't.”_

_“Then stay. I brought a book.” And he tapped the pages spread out in front of him._

_With hesitation, Sylvain laid down on the bench, resting his head on Felix’s thigh. The muscles there were a far better pillow than Felix’s shoulder, and he informed him of such._

_“Whatever. Just sleep.”_

_On his side, Sylvain closed his eyes and took deep breaths; every inhale and exhale grounding him to that moment of peace. Felix’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, light as a bird._

_And it stayed there._

He wants to feel that touch again. He crawls back into the memory, adjusting it and expanding it. Maybe he laid on his back this time, and he stared up at Felix’s face until he memorized every inch of it. As it stands he’s already losing pieces - can’t recall the exact angle of his jaw line, the precise shade of his lips, the length of the scar on his nose tip that Glenn had left once during a spar. There’s only an impression, a painting made with broad strokes of paint where the finer details must be imagined.

“I’ll find you,” Sylvain says to the weeping wind. “I promised.”

* * *

At last, the horizon sparkles with the sunlight reflecting on the sea. Distant at first, and so faint and lovely that he wondered if it was sparks of magic. But it blossomed on the horizon the further he traveled, and as the land rose up and eased down to the ocean he broke over the crest of the last hill and saw it:

The Rhodos coast.

Sylvain coaxes Nihlis into a canter, his heart beating in quadruple time as they hasten their way down the long, sloping hill.

It’s not quite sunset when he rides into the port town of Llue, and the atmosphere is eerily familiar. It takes him a moment to realize what the feeling in the air is, as he rounds a corner and sees the burned remains of a house being gutted for repairs.

It’s the nervous, grim hustle of a town in recovery. He hadn’t seen it firsthand for a decade at least, when the end of the war was still fresh and the last fires were just being quenched. The pale flash of new lumber like the glimpse of bone from a deep gash, the shy clusters of activity.

Sylvain finds a stable with some difficulty, and by the time his horse is boarded the sky is a deep purple overhead, freckled with the first stars of night and smeared with dark clouds. The first place he goes is the tavern.

It hails itself as The One-Legged Duck and it, too shows signs of repair. The inside is more lively than the roads have been; no doubt this is the focal point of the town’s social life, and the best place for him to find information.

At the table closest to the door, a person in a hooded cloak jerks away at the sight of him, an empty chair at his table bumped by the opening door. “Sorry,” Sylvain mutters without looking, and steps up to the bar.

“Evening, traveler. You’ve chosen a good time to visit.” The woman behind the bar has a smile on her face that’s tired but earnest. No doubt the place is in need of some extra coin.

“I’ll have an ale and some directions for an inn for the night.”

“No worries. I run one upstairs. Name’s Mariel.”

“Nice to meet you. Sylvain.”

He shakes her hand and slides an extra coin across the table. Waits and sips his ale until the bar relaxes around him, the usual chatter returning.

“You seem to know the going-ons of town,” he asks. “I’m here looking for someone. For the man I love.”

There’s a clatter of a chair behind him, and the swing of the door. Mariel peers past Sylvain.

“Hey, Tagg. Did he pay?”

“Aye.”

Satisfied, she nods and leans in. “Sorry about that. I’ll do what I can to help you find him. Tell me about him.”

“His name is Felix. He’s a man my age, with dark hair. This sword is his,” and he shifts his cloak aside to reveal the hilt, ease out a couple inches of the blade. “He’s a mercenary.”

At the last word, her face falls.

“And you believed him to be here?”

He nods.

Mariel sighs. “I hate to give you bad news so soon, but— we did have a group of mercenaries stationed here for a moon or so. We’d been having issues with pirates, you see. They’ve been picking at our town for months now, and the mayor hired some swords to help us.”

“Their leader?” Sylvain asks, his heart in his throat.

“I never met him,” she says. “But his men spoke highly of him. The few that survived.”

His heart stills, and he swears he feels the ice of his homeland creep through his veins. “Go on.”

“There was a raid about two moons back. The mercenaries had been with us since the summer and fought back a few bands, but I guess there were more raiders than we thought. When they came back, their ships were armed with— with awful pipes of wrought iron that spat lumps of metal and fire faster than an arrow. I’ve never seen anything like it. It devastated the town and the mercenaries, but— they won. Somehow.”

Her smile is faint and doesn’t last long. Sylvain grabs her hand from across the bar, pulling her close.

“Their leader,” he pleads. “What happened to him?”

Mariel swallows. “They— they say he protected his men to the end. Took one of those iron stones on his shield and saved them from the last volley. All they recovered of him was… an arm. And a sword.”

Sylvain feels his heart freeze over and drop like a pebble in a well, the world echoing around him.

“And the company?” he forces himself to ask. “The rest of the mercenaries, where did they go?”

She shakes her. “They scattered. Left in pairs or alone once the worst of the repairs were made. I’d tell you, hand to the Goddess, if I knew where any of them went but there was only a handful left.”

They stare at each other until Sylvain feels her wrist still in his grip. He recoils, stammering an apology out of a mouth numbed with shock.

“Is. Is there a grave?”

“A mass one. Just north of town on the cliff. Marked with a lance and a strip of blue silk.” She passes him a drink. “Here. On the house.”

Sylvain nods, pulls himself together; braced upright like the ties on the corsets he spent so much time lacing and unlacing in his youth. He takes the cup and finds an empty table, drains the ale without tasting it. The cold he left behind in Gautier has caught up to him now, spreading through his body and leaving him numb.

_“Do you think we’ll die here?” Sylvain asked, blood and words alike dripping from his mouth. Gronder Field was still alive with the sounds of battle, though they had found each other in the shelter of a bridge to catch their breath._

_“I don’t know.”_

_He expected to hear a biting warning, not to say things like that or that he would if he didn’t shut up. But Felix was paler, even, than Sylvain despite the only blood being on his own sword._

_“Hey.” Sylvain cleared his throat and spat. “What happened to you after I left to help Dorothea?”_

_Felix didn’t answer. The light had left his eyes._

_“Felix?”_

_“The boar went after the Professor,” he said at last. “It almost cut them down. I moved before I could let myself think.”_

_He turned to look at Sylvain, then, and the rawness there hurt more than the axe blow had._

_“Is there such a thing,” Felix asked, low and broken like an animal laying down to die, “as a good side anymore?”_

_Sylvain remembered thinking much the same as he plunged the Lance of Ruin, that ever-thirsty weapon, into the pure-white flank of a pegasus and then its rider._

_“I don’t know,” he answered, “but it’s far too late to change it now.”_

A second drink. A third. Maybe more; he loses count.

Eventually he leaves the bar, the instructions Mariel gave him ringing like a bell in his head. Barely able to recall where north is, he lets his feet take him where they may until the buildings clear out and he sees it on the horizon. A small hillock out by the sea cliffs, marked with an ersatz, somber flag.

The clouds are gathering as he climbs, a chill wind pushing them along. He feels none of it, not even the rocks under his feet as he stumbles scaling the rock-studded hillside. Not the bare earth under his knees as he collapses on top of the grave.

“Felix.” The name crawls out of his throat. “Felix.”

Somewhere, under the loam and earth, what remains of Felix Hugo Fraldarius rots, the body he’d honed to an instrument of war stripped of calloused flesh and corded muscle down to the bones by unfeeling insects. The hair Sylvain had brushed once or twice and longs to stroke again is growing matted and thinned. And whatever skeleton that remained would be jumbled in with the rest of the fallen; all the other sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, children and ancestors and living breathing people cut down by greed before their time.

The grief is too much. Desperate for the touch of a hand long gone cold with death, Sylvain finds himself digging, the sky rumbling above him until finally it breaks.

The rain weighs the soil down and makes it harder for Sylvain to claw it out of the way, but he perseveres. Gloved hands shake with every movement, the leather thick and stiff with mud until he strips them off and goes at it with bare hands. Feeling, fumbling in the dark for the shape of a broken body he knew and loved once.

An arm, he finds, eventually, but it’s too dark to find any pattern to the cloth or any detail in the hand. It’s only when it comes loose from the earth entirely, severed from the shoulder, is Sylvain aware of his actions. 

And he lets himself grieve.

It feels like a stone being split in two; once he starts, he can’t stop, curling around the crumbling hand he holds and pressing it against his forehead.

“I should have come with you,” he whispers. “You should have stayed. One of us should have bent for the other, just once.”

Perhaps in another lifetime, they did. It doesn’t help him, here, halfway through his life and all too aware of the emptiness stretching out in front of him. In this one, the only life he has, Felix is gone. He can’t even be sure that the hand he holds right now, is the right one, but;

It’s all he has. An arm and a sword.

As the rain picks up, he places the limb back in the grave. Mutters an apology to the dead and the deities alike. Scrapes the earth back over the remains of the battle and pats it down with cold, unfeeling hands.

Now, finally, he draws Felix’s sword.

He means to plunge it blade first into the earth and walk away; to return it to its owner deep below. But the shine of the rain on the blade catches his eye, glittering like stars and streaking like the comets he wished on as a small child. Like the bolt they’d seen drop from heaven and destroy a city in an instant.

Sylvain drives the end of the sword into the earth, his clothes plastered to him in the rain, and finds he cannot let it go. His fingers have lost their strength, and his legs. The sword is now all that keeps him upright. He leans in, pressing his forehead against the blade as his eyes fall closed.

And, one more time, as his consciousness wanes, he wishes—

  
  


* * *

  
  


_“A little kindness will go a long way to get horses to like you. People, too.”_

_Felix tugged on his hand again. “I’m here for an education, not to flirt with women like you.”_

_“I’m not a woman,” Sylvain reminded him, winding them closer together. There, in the shelter of a stable, the air sweet with the perfume of hay, he placed a hand on Felix’s cheek. “How about you flirt with me?”_

_And they—_

* * *

_“Try to do it faster next time,” Felix had retorted, easing his hand out of Sylvain’s grip, “and ask before you start— touching me everywhere.”_

_Not to be deterred, Sylvain followed him. “All right,” he said, slow and careful. “Can I touch you here?”_

_And he—_

* * *

_“Then stay. I brought a book.” And Felix tapped the pages spread out in front of him._

_Without hesitation, Sylvain leaned in once more, but this time to brush his lips across Felix’s cheek._

_“Thank you,” he whispered, “for—”_

* * *

_In the dark, his eyes could not read Felix’s expression, but he could hear it. “I don’t put stock in luck. We tell Byleth. And we rid our ranks of pests before we lose someone important.”_

_“You’re important to me,” Sylvain reminded him. “You always were.”_

_The hand on Sylvain’s shoulder slides up and—_

* * *

_“Is there such a thing,” Felix asked, “as a good side anymore?”_

_“I don’t know,” Sylvain answered, “but whatever side you’re on is where I’ll be.”_

* * *

The feeling of Faith magic is one Sylvain hasn’t experienced for years. Each person had their own sort of music behind theirs; he remembers the low woodwinds of Lindhart’s healing, the mournful strings of Marianne so similar to his own, the gentle chimes of Mercedes. If he were to assign an instrument to the Faith caressing him now, he would call it a trumpet, clear and strong.

They’re supposed to signal the end of times in some sects of religion. A call to arms for the war to destroy it all.

He’s already been in a war, but an ending doesn’t sound too bad.

“Felix,” he murmurs, eyes still closed, “I missed you.”

The music stops.

* * *

Sylvain’s eyes open to moonlight. It shines above him like a newly minted coin, the currency of another world that humans seldom inhabit, coating the dead grass and the mud around him in a brilliant, blue-silver sheen.

Of two things he is suddenly aware; he is laying on the grave of Felix Fraldarius, and he is not alone.

There is a shadow just above his head, someone seated with their back to him and a sword across their lap. _His_ sword. It catches the moonlight, flashing brilliant as a Thoron spell, as it’s examined. After a moment, the tip is plunged back into the earth where it had been.

Dulled by grief, Sylvain only watches as the person stands, lifting up his hood to cover his long dark hair, turning to look one last time—

And eyes the color of flame meet Sylvain’s.

He says it like a plea for mercy. “Felix.”

The shadow goes very still. In the moonlight, with the dull throb of agony pulsing through him with every beat of his heart, Sylvain feels un-moored.

“Is it my turn to see ghosts now?” he asks.

The flinch that passes over that face - familiar, but not untouched by time or wounds, sporting a deep scar along one cheek - says otherwise.

“Go back to sleep,” Felix whispers. “You’re dreaming.”

The voice is rough, worn by age and injury, but it’s him. It has to be.

And he starts to walk away Sylvain knows, with far more certainty than he has felt in the past thirty-some years, that if he lets this man leave he’ll never see him again. So Sylvain forces himself to stagger to his feet, reaching out to grasp him by his shoulder—

Only to have his hand find nothing. 

The padded shoulder of the cloak falls away to reveal the sharp dip where an arm had once been. The expression on Felix’s face is like Sylvain had been the one to take the limb from him.

_They were only able to recover an arm and a sword._

“Oh, Felix,” he starts, every unspoken word from every heavy moment welling up in the back of his throat, but Felix cuts him off.

“Why did you come here?” he snarls, recoiling. “You should have stayed in Gautier where you belong.”

The words are meant to hurt. They don’t. He’s just glad to hear Felix’s voice again, and he counters with a question of his own.

“Why did you send me your sword?”

A bitter laugh spills from Felix’s lips; a sound eerily reminiscent to the ravings of the Prince that they left in Faerghus to rot. “Felix Fraldarius is dead,” he says, and gestures to the uneven slant of his shattered shoulder. “Go home.”

He starts to walk away again, but Sylvain won’t let him. Even if his clothes are still damp from

the rain, the body they cover has been healed. Urgency makes him faster than Felix for once in his life, and this time he catches Felix’s wrist.

The pulse flutters under the skin there, rabbit-fast but alive. Sylvain wants to press his mouth to it.

“You feel alive to me,” is all he says, anchoring them both to the spot. It’s a beautiful view stretching out around them, the town at Sylvain’s back, the sea dark and sparkling to his left so massive it merges with the night sky. His eyes won’t leave the profile of Felix’s face, too desperate to take it in again. He won’t forget this time. Never again.

If the world itself splits apart and burns, he will still remember that face.

“What happened?” he asks, softer now. Pulling Felix just that little bit closer with his words, like he used to.

And like it used to, it works.

“We were hired to defend the town from raiders. We beat them at first, and then they returned in force. Their ships were armed with— weapons like I haven’t seen since the javelins of light.”

“One of the blasts was aimed at a group of us with nowhere to shelter. I used the Shield, and it protected them, but my arm—”

Felix hesitates. Even after all this time, Sylvain understands; in the space of a breath, everything he had spent his life on was torn away.

“I disbanded the company and started doing odd job for food and coin. I aim to buy passage as far way from Fodlan as I can get.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I’d rather you have remembered me as a hero, and moved on with your life.”

But the last question remains. 

“Why me?” Sylvain asks. “I’m not the only one who survived the war. Why send the sword to me?”

For a moment, the look Felix gives him is one of such grief, of such hunger that a pit opens up in his stomach just to behold it.

“You don’t know?” he asks back, voice so soft Sylvain could have dreamed. Has dreamed it in the past, imagined it whispered so close to his ear that lips brush his skin. 

But the look fades and Felix steels himself.

“We made our choices,” he says. “It doesn’t matter now.”

That’s a lie. Even if it’s the truth, Sylvain will claw it down and destroy it himself.

“It matters. We can make new choices,” he counters, “as long as we’re alive. It matters.”

Felix’s eyes drop once more, but this time they stay on Sylvain’s face. 

“And why did you come all the way out here?” His voice is brittle as glass, transparent and sharp edged and so, so beautiful.

Sylvain pulls them those last few inches together.

“For you,” he whispers. Promises. “For this.”

Like falling exhausted into bed, Sylvain collapses into their kiss. A kiss that waited almost too long to arrive, one that is heavy with years spent apart but sweetened like aged wine.

He could get drunk on this kiss were it not for the salt-tang of tears on the edge of it. As it is, he still chases Felix’s mouth when the man pulls away, eyes hesitant to open and find Felix gone.

Perhaps there is a Goddess, because he’s still here.

“I warn you,” and the face that stares back at him is familiar and new all at once, “the Felix you knew is gone. It’s been decades, Sylvain. I’m not who you remember.”

Sylvain cups that face in his hands. “Then I’ll get to know the new you,” he murmurs, “and I’ll love him too. Don’t make me break another promise.”

He only has one arm to wind around Sylvain’s body, and Sylvain’s clothes are still soaked, but it only makes them cling to each other tighter. So many years spent away, caught up in their own imperfections, but it brought them here; to the star-freckled sea and the infinity beyond it.

And all of it, even the pain, was worth a lifetime to wait for.

* * *

A letter arrives, some weeks later, to the Gautier estate accompanied by a riderless black stallion. It speaks of condolences, and of the death of Sylvain Jose Gautier from pneumonia near the port town of Llue. The staff share a long moment of grieving, and per the will’s instructions begin to divide up the lands of the estate to give back to the people.

* * *

On that same day, a ship crewed by only two people sets sail for a new adventure.

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
